Duncan Micallef (Ivan Sansom photo)

In second spot was a returning Duncan Micallef, the Maltese racer piloting one of the Rune Fjeld Motorsport entries to a 3.9130/304.20 whilst taking something of the long way to the finishline with Anita Mäkelä (3.9520/305.59) and Stig Neergaard (3.9746/297.46) rounding out the quick quartet.

Anita Makela (Ivan Sansom photo)

They would probably have been joined by Liam Jones had a belt not departed early on his 4.0374 for fifth. Where it missed it led to vicious shake and/or rapid breaking of traction that afflicted pretty much all of the teams during the course of the event, busting a whole pile of stuff in the process and leading to a number of aborted runs in qualifying and eliminations. Indeed, it was only Mäkelä who revisited the 3s on the Sunday with a 3.984/303.65 to defeated Micke Kågered’s ailing 10-second pass in the first round. Neergaard (4.108 to cover Jones’ instantly up in smoke twelve second pass), Gunnarsson (6.419 accompanied by smoke defeated Björn Mårtensson’s instant smoker) and Micallef (8.853 after hitting violent shake on a solo after Timo Lehtimäki was a no show and alternate Monica Öberg was sitting in the stands) all progressed. Mäkelä carded the quickest number of the semifinalists with a 4.094 comfortably covering Micallef’s smoking 11 and Neergaard (up in smoke at the hit before rolling to a twelve second clocking) greatly benefitted from a very early leave from Gunnarsson whose 4.919 was negated by the cherry on the tree.

Stig Neergaard (Rose Hughes photo)

The final pitched the top two in the championship chase into a head to head, with Neergaard leaving first with just under a tenth advantage at the trip but shortly thereafter Anita’s Levin Iglut ride was appreciably gaining momentum until the blower belt decided to depart at just the wrong point permitting Stig to pull past and take the win with a 4.187 to the Finn’s slowing 4.701, and closing down Mäkelä’s championship to less than an elimination round with the finals to come.